Rock Band 3 (Wii, 2010)

Rock Band 3 has some great elements that have been a long time coming. However, the format for actually playing the music is the same as the old ones. In my opinion, just stick with what you have and download songs you actually want.

There are some very cool pros, though:
You can change difficulty, drop out, and even switch your options on the fly.
When you pause the game, it "rewinds" the track a bit so you don't jump right back into it and mess up.
You can already tell there is a load of new things to do and buy.
You can rate songs now.
The format of the game is different. You can go after goals, do the good old road tour, or do things in a myriad of different ways.
Pro mode seems very cool, although for hardcore folks who modded a digital kit, that's already been around.

Cons... BIG cons:
If you have a huge library and want to pay the $$ to get the few new features, then by all means it's a go. Truthfully though, I thought even Lego Rock Band was a better game. It had humor and creativity and some redeeming songs.

Another big problem... this is a music game... yet the music is GARBAGE!!!

!!!I REPEAT, THE MUSIC IS GARBAGE!!!

Before you buy this game, check out the music it comes with. The FULL set list. Listen to sample tracks online. Trust me... you will be playing twenty-to-thirty songs that are SO BAD they will make your EARS BLEED before you get to one decent song. The song selection in this game sounds like it was put together by some feces-sniffing monkeys with hearing problems and chemical dependency issues. My wife and I have been playing for a few days now and oh man... the majority of the songs on this game are nearly unbearable. Not only do they sound awful, but they are so dull and repetitive that they numb your fingers. Not from difficulty, but from repetition. Carpel Tunnel syndrome, anybody?

Think about it... why would they include more than a handful of decent songs when they know you're going to shell out extra cash on the RB store to get the songs you really want? So they give you a pile of bland, painful, gag-yourself-with-a-plastic-gu​itar "music" to slosh through.

I loved the first games so much I modded a Simmons SD7k to play Rock Band with. I was already playing "pro" mode... having to distinguish which blues were high-hat and which were mid tom, yellow for hat, etc. One big annoyance for RB3 is that you have to use the D-pad (on the Xbox 360, "D" stands for "Dysfunctional") on your drums to navigate now. I loved speeding through lists by just rat-tat-tat-ing on the blue tom. That is over now.

All-in-all, I give it a 1.5 out of 5, rounded down. The new features are very cool but they are long overdue. There is not enough new here to justify another buy... especially when you have a great library and RB 1 or 2. It is still a hassle to play with several people in one room. The gameplay is a discordant mess which will have you wondering, "What's the point of this mode?" Paying money to incorporate songs you already own is a low-brow money-grab. And finally the actual music. The "I'd rather ram dookie-laden drumsticks in my eardrums than listen to this song again" music.

Maybe a feature in the next Rock Band will be the option to completely delete tracks from the disc's library so you never have to hear them again? Ever. Ever... EVER!

I suggest sticking to the RB store and buying songs you actually enjoy for RB 1 and 2. Trust me.

After playing Rock Band 2, I was interested in learning how to play real instruments. So I was quite excited to hear that RB3 would provide the ability to use 'real' instruments to play the game.

RB3 did several things right and some things wrong too. If you are looking for a casual musical game experience, RB2 might be a better choice, but if you have mastered everything in RB2 or are interested in the 'Pro' instruments, this version has real potential.

Any songs you have downloaded in RB2 will automatically be installed in RB3. You can 'transfer' many of the songs included with RB2, but it will cost you $10 and take quite a while to download them. RB2 instruments work with RB3.

The game seems to put more information on the screen, but as a result, things are smaller and harder to read/decipher, on my old tube type screen at least. Navigation is a bit confusing at times, being '+ key' menu driven in places rather than up/down/select/back in all places as in earlier games. Documentation is scanty, leaving trial and error or internet research as the means to figure out some of the features.

Creating your character is as good or better than before. You still have the 'store' to select attire from, but instead of earning money to buy the items, you 'unlock' them by completing challenges. I think the 'shopping' methodology in RB2 is more fun. You can select the non-player members of your band rather than the random choices you get in RB2, but the choices seem to be rather limited. The ability to design your band logo appears to be quite powerful, but I wasn't interested enough to spend the time to figure out how to work it.

There is a more powerful way to sort the songs displayed, and limit which songs are available (including a 'family friendly' filter). You also have the ability to put your own rating on the songs, to increase/decrease the likelihood of having it presented as a random choice. It requires 2 pages to display all the information for each song, due to the extra information shown. There are 82 songs, good and bad, provided, and you have immediate access to all of them rather then having to 'earn' them as in RB2.

There is no tutorial or training on using the 'old' guitars or vocals. Even if you are familiar with their use, there are some new features and options which are not explained. There are tutorials for drums, pro drums and pro guitar. The drums tutorial teaches you beat patterns and fills, with no indication 'how to play the game'. The pro drums one is the same, except with the addition of cymbals. In case you were wondering, they indicate drums with the standard targets (bars) and cymbals with cymbal-looking targets. You don't seem to be able to leave a lesson in the middle without throwing away earlier progress.

The practice sessions are pretty much the same as earlier versions of the game, but you can only slow it down to 70% instead of the previous 50%. 70% is sometimes not slow enough to figure out a sequence.

The guitar 'track' now becomes 'colored' when you reach 4x bonus, which is nice, but 'guitar solo' is then indicated by the track sides being colored, and this is not obvious enough to catch my eye when the progressions are at all difficult. Other things appear on the screen which I have not figured out yet.

I don't have enough characters left, or experience with game play yet, to get into the play here; see my review for the keyboard bundle at a later date for more info.

I've been a Rock Band fan all the way since the original Rock Band came out. The idea of having a full band with drums, vocals, guitar and bass play at the same time was a big step up for the music game genre at that time. Now that we have gotten used to it, Harmonix decided to add a new instrument to the game and a few addons like Pro instruments that allows you to use your real guitar, keyboard, bass and drum skills to shine.

The game itself haven't changed alot since the last game, but there are some minor flaws that the developers should think about fixing. For example there is no filter for searching for random players. If you want to play with expert only players, you may have to consider joining a community site. The quickplay feature also has a few problems, for instance, if you play with randoms or anyone they can actually delete songs that you add to the setlist and there is also no way to change between bass and guitar between songs in a setlist, and yes they actually force you to make a setlist with the band so you can't pick single songs like Rock Band 2. They also removed the Score Duel and Tug Of War game mode but i don't think it will be missed.

For now the keyboard seems to be more of an addition since they haven't added keyboard support to the older DLC. It also seem like the vocals also becomes more of an addition, since it now doesn't count as an instrument while playing as full band where the vocals doesn't get points or gets involved into the gameplay. There is also no mic sensitivity controller for the vocals so if you use any third party mics it will be more sensitive than it would be in Rock Band 2.

Even though Pro mode teaches you to play the instrument doesn't mean that you will actually be able to play the songs on a real instruments. What i believe is that you rather play by looking at a screen than playing with the music when playing a game like Rock Band plus that pro only teaches you half of what the instruments is really about. Pro drums has it's cymbals and drums but it still misses the hi-hat pedal which is where the drummer keeps the count and beat. The Pro keys only include the chart for the right hand of the song so you only learn to play what the keyboardist play with his/her right hand. While the pro guitar and bass seems to be perfect.

Despite the flaws in the game, it works fine and a few features that alot of fans would appriciate for for instance quicker loading.

ESPAÑIOL:
RB3 es la evolucion de sus entregas anteriores y como la franquicia ha logrado captar los gustos musicales.
para los que se quedaron en la dificultad media en muchos instrumentos su curva de aprendizaje ha hecho que los que se sintieron frustrados con el boton naranja logren sobrellevarlo y empezar a dominarlo para asi subir la dificultad y gozar al maximo las canciones.
el modo PRO es un buen tutorial para los que gozan tanto el juego, la musica y estan preparados para saltar al siguiente nivel: un instrumento de verdad.
Muchos de las opciones de personalizacion de personajes han cambiado y otras mejoraron asi que hay para todos los gustos
la seleccion musical (aparte de la que ya conocen) puede crecer junto con las entregas de RB anteriores incluyendo AC/DC RB lego y algunos "track pack"
en opinio de este Vocalista de RB 1, 2 y 3, yo le daria un 9 porque lo unico negativo que le veo, es que hay que pagar 800MP por RB2 y RBlego.

ENGLISH:

RB3 is the evolution of their previous games as the franchise has captured the musical tastes.
For those who remained in the medium difficulty in many instruments, the learning curve has been that they felt frustrated with the orange button able to cope and start to dominate for so up the difficulty and enjoy the most of the songs.
PRO mode is a good tutorial for those who enjoy both the game, the music and are prepared to jump to the next level: a real instrument.
Many of the character customization options have changed and improved so that there are others to suit all tastes
musical selection (other than what they already know) can grow with the previous RB deliveries including AC / DC RB lego and some "track pack"
in opinions of this Vocalist RB 1, 2 and 3, I would give it a 9 because the only thing negative that I see, is to be paid 800MP by music of RB2 and RBlego .

Rock Band 3 Is a very fun game if you played the previous rock bands you will be familiar but what I like about rock band 3 is the upgraded visual everything looks great,the in game challenges they give you keep you in the game wanting to hit all the right notes which can be satisfying when you complete them,the new character models & the way you customizing is great you can now customize ay part of the body from eyes to jaw,chin,nose,etc,& another thing you see your character walk around on the screen with the band see your band take the train to a plane really makes you feel like you're there,& finally the best feature they added to make it funner while playing with friends is the ability to jump in & out of songs make everything easier to access.to sum it all up if your a fan of the previous get this the RB store is great also they also have pro instruments to take your game further almost like the real thing plus a keyboard but don't have it yet to review it